The intelligent and measured Kendra Sorenson and her knuckleheaded younger brother Seth are shipped off to spend the summer with their paternal grandparents after their mother's parents are killed in an accident. (Part of their grandparent's will stipulated that a portion of their money be used to send their children on a cruise as a "parting gift.") Reeling from the loss, they don't expect to enjoy the trip much, but are pleasantly surprised to discover that their other grandparents live in a spacious mansion. They've also got a garden filled with more birds, insects, and flowers than anyone they've ever met. But after sipping some of the milk left out for the "birds," they learn the truth: The "birds and insects" are actually fairies! The milk enables them to see them in their true forms. Their grandfather reveals that they are actually caretakers of a wildlife preserve for magical creatures named Fablehaven. It's filled to the brim with colorful fairies, witty and snarky fauns, Gentle Giant golems, and a couple dangerous giants and trolls. Grandpa, along with his assistants Dale and Lena, offers to show the two siblings around the preserve, and begin to teach them the strange and exiciting ways of the magical reserves.

A witch named Muriel nearly unleashes a demon and overthrows the preserve, and the Fairy Queen turns Kendra into an honorary fairy to save her life. But that's only the beginning of the trouble. There's an Ancient Conspiracy called the Society of the Evening Star out to overthrow Fablehaven—and all the other magical preserves—in search of five magical artifacts of immense power, which together make a key to open up a prison full of demons and blanket the world in darkness. They possess infinite patience—they'll spend thousands of years building up their credibility in one place before making a move—and a nearly innumerable number of moles, which pop up in unexpected places. Kendra and Seth, having been dragged into the mess, must quickly discover a new way of life: Nowhere is safe. No one is trustworthy. Anyone Can Die, and anyone can turn on you. The Society possesses near omnipotence, and can pop up to get you at any second. To make matters worse, most of the "magical creatures" quickly reveal themselves to be true animals (or very alien beings), and are nowhere near gentle dewy-eyed beings they are in most fairy tales.

Death and the society await around every corner. Will Kendra and Seth be able to work with their friends and prevent demons from destroying the world? Even moreso—will they survive?

This series provides examples of:

Abhorrent Admirer: In a rare male-on-female example, Kendra is stuck with the satyr Verl as her annoying admirer.

Action Grandma: Ruth Sorenson is rarely seen without her crossbow. Thank goodness.

All Myths Are True: Kendra and Seth have a very interesting discussion with Lena on this possibility in the first book. By book 5, it seems there are few mythic creatures and beings that don't have real counterparts in the world of "whimsical" beings.

Badass Grandpa: Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson have been working with magical creatures for decades; you do not mess with them. Grandma Ruth is the more obviously bad-ass one, but Grandpa Stan's no slouch either.

Bad Powers, Good People: Seth can telepathically speak to the undead, become invisible in even slight darkness, speak demonic languages, and (although he never does so) project fear, lower the temperature in a room, and cause dizzy spells. He's unquestionably one of the good guys. Although it's deconstructed a bit, as even his own family is worried about him going dark side and everyone else is amazed that a guy like him is on their side.

Bait the Dog: Graulas, helping Seth and being an ally was all just to gain their trust, get healed, and hijack the Big Bad possession with Luna.

Baleful Polymorph: Fairies kept indoors at night turn into imps, which are sort of reverse fairies; both are quite vain, but where fairies are aware of how pretty they are and therefore good-natured in a shallow sort of way, imps are just as aware of how ugly they are, which makes them incredibly nasty.

This also occasionally happens to the humans in the series—the best example is Grandma's chicken transformation.

Barrier Maiden: The five Eternals, which are the second barrier to opening Zzyzx.

Batman Gambit: The Fairy Queen and her realm pull one on the entirety of the demons of Zzyzx when she lets them go into her realm, as she knows they will not be able to resist destroying it. Once they are inside, they realize that every other exit has been destroyed, and the Fairy Queen has closed off the entrance, trapping them again. To add insult to injury, the Fairy Queen has moved into Zzyzx, intending to make it her new realm.

Beware the Nice Ones: Kendra is a sweet, hesitant girl who hates touching weapons. She fights demons with powers verging on godhood, and it is they that fear her, with good reason. The best example comes in Book 5... after the Demon King attacks Bracken, Kendra borrows Vasilis and cuts his head off. Yes, Kendra just killed the King of Demons.

Breath Weapon: Dragons. While we see a few breathing fire, most have a more unique breath weapon. Navarog breathes molten metal, Siletta breathes poison, and dragon king Celebrant is described as having at least five separate breath weapons and one made of pure energy is shown on Brogo in the fifth book. Subverted with Raxtus, whose breath makes plants grow.

Brown Note: Dragons are so awesome, most people get mesmerized just by looking at them. Raxtus is an exception, but he self-identifies as "lame."

Butt Monkey: Warren and Dale experience this at different levels. Dale is often harmed or rendered incapable of helping the team, e.g. turned into a shadow, holed up in the barn when Graulas destroys the treaty, "Dale, I'm sorry you're stuck in a net". And if one of the Knights gets hurt on a mission, it's probably Warren. He's been stabbed, clawed with harpy venom, trapped in an extradimensional space—you name it. The number of injuries he sustains through the series are just about incalculable.

Casual Danger Dialog: If anything ever fazes Warren, they haven't yet found it. Even when put up out of comission, he still tries to help.

Cerebus Syndrome: The first book is mostly lighthearted (and has a silly dust jacket to match, talking about fog troll dental work), and doesn't generally go beyond "just creepy enough for its target audience." Book 2, Rise of the Evening Star, is a lot darker... and Books 3 and 4, The Shadow Plague and The Dragon Sanctuary, officially hit That's Just Messed Up! territory. Book 5 doesn't stop escalating the stakes until the very end.

Character Development: Seth—over the course of the series, he gradually learns to be a little less foolhardy and learns to think things through.

Chekhov M.I.A.: Seth never does get to use his treasure from Wyrmroost. He actually realizes this and is highly disappointed by it, but he considers using the growing tower to give Hugo a permanent home.

There's a jinn sealed in Fablehaven's dungeon. Ruth gives a detailed explanation of his powers, but nothing ever comes of it.

Chekhov's Gunman: In Book 5, Grandma and Grandpa Larsen... from all the way back in Book 1!

Crazy Awesome: Patton Burgess is acknowledged as this in-universe. Seth's aiming for it, but he's not there yet.

Cruel and Unusual Death: All of them. In Rise of The Evening Star it's Errol getting mauled to death by the Guardian for the 'sands of sancity'. Vanessa drops him on purpose when he gets too heavy. In Grip of the Shadow Plague (which is significantly darker) it's several violent deaths in search of the artifact in the Lost Mesa, and then Lena's crushing death at the end. That's only a few examples! All the deaths are gory or sad.

Curb Stomp Battle: At the end of book 5: Seth to Graulas and Kendra to Gorgorg

Dark Is Not Evil: It sure seems like Dark Is Evil at first—it's the creatures like trolls and imps who are all antagonistic—but as Book 4, Dragon Sanctuary shows, even demons aren't all bad most of the time. A lot of the magical creatures—even the ostentiably "light" ones—fall into an obnoxiously Chaotic Neutral territory anyway.

As of Book 5, there are no such things as "neutral" demons. Poor Seth...

Seth himself: As a shadow charmer, he has a lot of dark-themed powers and enjoys the friendship and loyalty of dark creatures, but he's unquestionably one of the heroes.

There's also a distinction drawn by some of the caretakers between "dark" and "evil". The argument is that a demon or troll or goblin or whatever does not destroy because it's evil, but because it's a dark creature and that's what dark creatures do, same as how a snake will bite because it's a snake, not because it's evil.

Diabolus Ex Machina: The end of Rise of the Evening Star looks pretty happy. The Mole is under captivity, the Big Good's on top of things, Everybody Lives, and one of the magical artifacts has been recovered. And then you find out: The Sphinx is nowhere near what he appears...

Earlier, in book 2, we have the scene with the revenant, which may be viewed as even more awesome than the demon-killing in Book 5, considering that Seth had no special powers at the time and far less experience with the magical world.

Grand Finale: While Mull is extremely fond of escalating the stakes in each of his epic fantasy climaxes, the final book manages to leave them all in the dust. And every major plot thread is tied off neatly.

Heart Is an Awesome Power: While other dragons have badass Breath Weapons, the ability to freeze humans with just a glance, and enormous size, Raxtus is small, shiny, and has sharp claws. In Book 5, we find out that his shiny scales are almost as hard as his father's, the dragon king, whose scales are even harder than the seemingly-impenetrable adamant, making his nearly-impenetrable. And his teeth and claws are almost as sharp.

Interspecies Romance: Patton and Lena. Ephira Burgess is later revealed as the tragic victim of one gone wrong. Also, Kendra and Bracken, should their friendship deepen into such. And Mull hints quite strongly that it will. It also comes out in Book 5 that Vanessa likes Warren, so there are shades of this between them, though not as obvious as with Kendra and Bracken.

Ironic Hell: The Sphinx's punishment for trying to unleash demons on the world? He becomes one of the Barrier Maidens who keep it closed, meaning he would have to kill himself to see his dream come to pass.

Jerk Jock: Word of God is that this was the idea around which the centaurs were designed. And if the centaurs are the nasty jocks who push people around, the satyrs are their easygoing frat boy counterparts.

Just Between You and Me: And boy it it a doozy—taking up a whole chapter. Notable in that The Sphinx never really suffers as a result of this particular conversation.

Living Forever Is Awesome: Of the three eternals, Marcus is clearly Who Wants to Live Forever?, and Civia is Properly Paranoid and regards her immortality as a duty, Roon, though never met while he was alive, seemed to be this, getting together a group of people to hunt and fight all sorts of monsters, and to continue these hunts because he was immortal.

Locked Out of the Loop: Tends to happen with the children of caretakers/Knights; first their parents must find out if their children are caretaker material, and if the answer is "no," they're locked out of the loop forever. However, as Stan notes, ignorance is protection in this case.

Kissing Cousins: OK, so nothing ever actually comes of it, but throughout Book 2, Kendra harbors a bit of a Precocious Crush on Warren, who is in fact her distant cousin.

The Masquerade: To most people, magical creatures look like ordinary things; they have a built-in Weirdness Censor. Magic milk, as well as Kendra's fairy-sight, can see through it.

Mauve Shirt: Several Knights are named and accompany them on missions, like Dougan, Vincent, Aaron and Mara. Some Society troops also have minor importance, like the Kobold and Errol.

Mayfly-December Romance: Patton Burgess married a naiad; even after becoming "human," she still lived on for a long time without really aging. Kendra and Bracken also fall hard for each other, but as they openly acknowledge, there's a lot against them. During the Grand Finale's denouement, they both acknowledge that they need some time to get to know each other—and Kendra needs time to mature—before they can really solidify anything.

The Mole: Great gravy! The Sphinx is the most prominent example, but the first major one is Vanessa, and Gavin, AKA Navarog, shows his True Colors at either the worst or best possible time.

The Monolith: There's a reason the Australian preserve is called Obsidian Waste—it's because of the huge obsidian monolith where the Translocator is kept.

Mr. Vice Guy: Coulter, who despite being extremely intelligent and exceptionally gentlemanly, still retains a touch of "misguided chivalry"-style sexism (he won't put a woman in danger). He seems to lighten up as time goes by, though, and eventually seems to grudgingly admit that Kendra (and Ruth!) can hold their own.

My Card: One of the minor villains carries around a bunch of fake business cards and even gives a few to Seth and Kendra.

Noble Demon: Graulas. He makes Seth into a shadow charmer in Dragon Sanctuary. Unfortunately for Seth, he finds out in the next book that it was mere circumstances that truly kept Graulas' innately evil nature in check, not any genuine desire to restrain himself.

Not Now, Kiddo: Thankfully averted. The adults are Genre Savvy enough to know that a creature that the underage can see but the adults can't is completely plausible on a magical preserve.

Tanu:Just because I can't see it doesn't mean you don't.

Not So Different: Seth and the Sphinx: Both shadow charmers. The Sphinx, however, has a bad case of hubris.

Ominous Owl: The owl-like astrids in Book 4 are pretty dang creepy, at first.

One-Gender Race: The Fairies are exclusively female. Though book 4 reveals it wasn't always that way...

Despite the fact that Kendra thinks the astrids look neither male nor female, they all turn into big buff men in book 5, so they technically qualify.

Parental Obliviousness: In spite of all attempts to avert this by the grandparents, since birth Kendra's mother and father have been blissfully unaware of the magical world the rest of the family is deeply ingrained in.

It should be noted that in cases where family members do not strike them as being Caretaker material, they deliberately make sure the clues will be hidden. Innocence of the existence of magical creatures is (almost) a 100% foolproof way of being protected from them.

Perverse Puppet: Mendigo, Muriel's supernaturally strong puppet minion. After she's gone and her magic fades, he becomes good. But it isn't really a Heel-Face Turn, since he has no mind.

Pinocchio Syndrome: Wizards are dragons that took permanent human form in order to greatly increase their magical powers. Comes at the cost of their ability to radiate fear, everything they could do physcialy in dragon form(like fly), and their immortality. They still age really slowly though.

Sequel Escalation: Word of God states Mull wrote the series so the books would "build on each other in fun ways". Book 1 is pretty tame compared to the rest, with everything but the first few pages taking place at the titular preserve. By the fifth book, maybe 50% of the story happens at Fablehaven, and the characters see Obsidian Waste and Living Mirage, two more of the five secret preserves.

Shoo Out the Clowns: Quite surprisingly averted by Newel and Doren in book five. They stick around for the last battle, fight bravely, and, though their accomplishments are those of secondary characters, fight bravely and survive. Before the final battle, they do mention they know they are going to their probable deaths and would have ditched long ago if not for some pesky nobility that snuck into their characters. Yet they still come out with some great wingers even during all this—and while some of it is to help keep spirits up and the like, some of it is just them. Their battle cry is "for Frito-Lay" after all...

Shout-Out: A possible subtle reference to Dungeons & Dragons occurs in the third book, in which the heroes are attacked by a blue dragon that breathes lightning.

Sibling Yin-Yang: Kendra's the smart, thoughtful sibling who doesn't like taking risks; Seth's the obnoxious one with more energy than brains. In the fourth book, it becomes literal yin yang, as Kendra embodies light by being fairykind and Seth embodies darkness by being a shadow charmer.

Sleep Mode Size: Olloch the Glutton. To contain him, he was shrunk into a tiny stone statue of himself. If you feed him, he awakens, starts eating anything in his path, and grows at an incredible rate. He only reverts to statue form if he eats the person who fed him (though apparently he doesn't shrink again). At the beginning of the second book, Seth gets tricked into feeding Olloch, who eventually catches up with him and swallows him. Fortunately, at the time he gets eaten, Seth is wearing an impenetrable cocoon, so Olloch reverts to statue form and Seth passes through the digestive system and escapes with his life.

Spanner in the Works: The Sphinx had an unstoppable plan, with every contingency planned, against which the heroes were powerless - except that they never anticipated that Seth would inadvertently free the demon Graulas, causing them to lose control of the plan.

Stable Time Loop: The Chronometer from Book 3, temporarily bringing Patton Burgess into the present day—which leads him to Write Back to the Future. This also allows the characters to visit him in the past a few times in book 5.

Taken for Granite: Happens several times. Dale is briefly turned into a life-sized lead statue. Olloch the Glutton is also trapped as a statue until someone feeds him. When he eats that person, he reverts back to statue form.

The Unfavorite: Raxtus. His brothers rule over preserves, and he's been disowned for being "too fairylike". If it weren't for the fact that Celebrant is fully aware that it's his fault Raxtus is like this, he'd have let the other dragons kill him.

Unequal Rites: Wizards are dragons how take permanent human form to drastically increase their magical abilities. Witches are mortals who have(somehow) learned to use dark magic. Warlocks and magicians have been stated to exist and be distinct from both, but it is never mentioned exactly how they are distinct.

Was Once a Man: Happens occasionally. For example, Ephira. And there's the exact opposite: the wizards weren't always human.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Sphinx sees his intentions as good, but according to the Fairy Queen he's also driven by a lust for power and control.

What Happened to the Mouse?: Aaron Stone, the Knight's Pilot, was last seen dropping them off at the Obsidian Waste, when the trap was sprung, he was still waiting for the group at the airfield, and a bunch of Zombies were sent to kill him. Warren admits to calling him and warning him about the trap, and he isn't seen among the undead (unlike their other victim), so implicitly he survives, but never appears again.

What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: Discussed in The Shadow Plague when Kendra finds out that zombies are kept at Lost Mesa. They're buried deep underground and are trained to ring a bell if they're hungry, so they're not dangerous if properly fed. Since these zombies have no humanity, Hal sees them as just another supernatural creature that deserves protection.

The Woobie: Raxtus from Book 4 is one of these in-universe; Kendra's initial reaction toward him after first hearing his story is a strong desire to hug him.It is worth mentioning he is a dragon the size of a minivan.

Write Who You Know: Word of God admits that his real-life little brother is impetuous in the same way Seth is, and while they're not exactly the same person, they're very close.

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